LALW317 Literature from Immigrants in America 3 cr.

This course focuses on literary texts and films that examine the experience of immigrants in the USA from the 1950s to today. Through the reading of excerpts of novels, short stories and critical essays, and the viewing of feature films and documentaries, the course treats issues that have affected successive generations of Irish, Jewish, Italian, Japanese, Indian and more recently Hispanic/Caribbean immigrants in the USA. The course devotes special attention to the experience of marginalization of the immigrants, changes in their family structure, the process of ‘becoming American,’ and the social and cultural impact these communities have had on US national identity. The course also considers ways in which immigrant writers both adopt and adapt the English language, while changing and often enriching it, and how they work against conventional cultural and visual representations of immigrants in US media. [Formerly Immigrants in America]